Our most popular classes! Learn and grow as part of our team.

The Advanced BJJ classes are designed for those with a little experience under their belt, or for local club members who have completed the beginner’s course, as well as traveling BJJ-practitioners who want a healthy, competitive and friendly rolling environment.

We’re now going to give you a breakdown of how these classes work!

Immerse yourself in a 90-minute lesson, beginning with some light stretching. We’ll then pick up the pace with some dynamic warm-ups and partner drills to get everybody sweating. We’ll continue into some jiu-jitsu specific drills and a couple strength-training exercises. We then invite the most experienced students and instructors to teach two or three tried and tested techniques, which always revolve around the same areas we have been focusing on that particular week; whether that be guard sweeps, take-downs or submissions from back-mount. Our advanced classes cover a lot of ground, we also teach passing, posturing, transitions, and escapes. The advanced gi classes usually cover ground-work exclusively, whereas the no-gi classes are usually from standing and include the takedown and throws, in a safe and careful manner.

With half an hour to go, we drop straight into a series of sparring activities, including short but explosive positional sparring. When the mats are super busy, we like to arrange a ‘king of the hill’ type sparring where people line up to attempt and achieve a specific objective. Concluding these activities, we go into full-sparring, 5 to 6-minute rounds. You can sit out of the sparring, and you will not be pressured to do anything you don’t want to.
. Drink water whenever you require it! Everyone is practicing at their own pace and we treat everyone with respect as an individual.

It’s true that sparring can seem intimidating, but we are all here to learn and grow together. We strongly discourage unnecessary aggression and we always remind our students to rely on the techniques they have practiced, rather than their strength of natural athleticism.

Competing anytime soon?

We occasionally organize training sessions for people who are looking to compete in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments (which usually take place abroad as the BJJ scene in Malta is small). These classes are somewhat different to our regular classes. It is required to have at least two months of training under your belt before you can join these classes. You need to know basic positions and have some sort of basic understanding of fundamentals, attacks, escapes, and passes. You also need to be a regular member of Arete to be eligible to join these classes. These classes will be notified separately in our Facebook group. The reasons for the extra requirements are simply because we need to pick up the pace when a competition approaches and we want everyone to maximize their training time in these crucial sessions.

Here are a few tips to ensure you have a smooth and awesome first session.

Be on time! Come to the venue around 10 minutes before the class starts

We discourage the use of groin guards (as they are illegal in competition), however, we encourage the use of a mouth-guard. Both are optional of course and you are completely free to use whatever makes you comfortable.

Bring a towel to wipe away sweat.

Be open-minded and enjoy yourself! As with all experiences, it is what you make of it.